by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

FORT WORTH - If NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup wasn't a two-man race before Sunday's race at Texas Motor Speedway, it certainly is now.

Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth emerged as the indisputable championship contenders while the chances of three darkhorse drivers - Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch - all but disappeared with just two races remaining.

Kenseth and Johnson had to overcome mistakes that could have been costly in order to keep their title hopes alive.

Kenseth got a pit road speeding penalty at lap 173 of 334 and dropped from second place to 16th. If he hadn't rallied for a fourth-place finish, it would have left him 19 points behind; instead he's only seven points down and very much a contender heading into events at Phoenix International Raceway and Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"I sped trying to be aggressive, which was all on me," Kenseth said. "Still came back and got a top-five. The day could have been a lot worse. It was a good day for us, really."

Johnson had a problem of his own during green-flag pit stops with just under 100 laps remaining when he dropped from first place to fifth due to a slow tire change. He recovered, drove back to the lead and stayed there when his pit crew redeemed itself on the final stop.

"That was a challenging point in the race, but it was nice to actually have it, because I realized how good of a car I had," Johnson said.

Said team owner Rick Hendrick: "It was kind of a perfect night, other than one pit stop."

Kenseth's mistake was worse. But even if he had finished second, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said, he wasn't going to catch Johnson.

The No. 48 car was just too fast, too strong - as has been the case so many times in past Chases.

"We just couldn't touch them," Kenseth said.

Kenseth, who seemed to be in an upbeat mood despite losing ground, said he was confident about his chances with two races left.

"The math works out if you win the last two races, so it's still in our hands," he said. "It's not like we have to have somebody have trouble. If we can go out there and out-run everybody for two weeks, we'll just go with that mindset.

"We're still in this thing after eight weeks and we're going to try to get it."

But he and Johnson seem to be the only ones still in it.

Before the race, there had been talk - maybe overly optimistic - that three other drivers within 40 points of the lead might still be contenders. Gordon's win at Martinsville Speedway last week had given him momentum and helped the No. 24 team close to within 27 points of Johnson and Kenseth, who entered Texas tied. Harvick was 28 back and Busch remained a longshot at 36 behind.

If Johnson and Kenseth both had problems at Texas, those three drivers could have gotten back into the mix.

Not anymore.

Gordon, who made the Chase field as an unprecedented chairman's selection as a 13th driver after the team orders scandal at Richmond International Raceway, had a flat tire and smacked the wall just 73 laps into the race. He finished 38th and fell to sixth in the points standings - 69 behind the leaders.

"Just devastating, you know?" he said. "You know how hard this team has worked and you know how things have to go your way to stay close to those guys or even make the gap up. ... We just have to put this behind us and go race hard the next two weeks."

Harvick is the closest to the Johnson/Kenseth duo, but he's still 40 points back after finishing eighth. Busch is 52 points behind thanks to a 13th-place finish on a day that included a blown tire, contact with the wall and a late speeding penalty after he had rallied back into the top three.

"Realistically, with two races left, you're probably not going to out-race the 48 and the 20 to accumulate more points than them to win the championship," said Jason Ratcliff, Busch's crew chief. "But anything can happen."